Assad henchmen execute civilians

BEIRUT: At least 15 civilians were “summarily executed” by regime forces in a neighborhood of the central Syrian city of Homs overnight, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said yesterday.
"After regime forces raided the neighborhood of Shammas, 15 civilians were found summarily executed," Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based watchdog told AFP, qualifying the killings a "massacre."
The executions came one day after regime forces were accused of committing another massacre in Khan Sheikhoun in northwest Idlib, when they opened fire on a funeral procession and reportedly killed 20 people.
Abdel Rahman said a 43-year-old cleric who had six children was among those killed in Homs. "Everybody loved this cleric, because he called for national unity," said Abdel Rahman, who added he was involved in charity work.
The killings were reported hours after regime troops shot dead at least five people in a new assault in Khan Sheikhun and opened fire on a refugee camp in southern Syria on Wednesday, the Observatory said.
Four others died of wounds suffered on Tuesday during the Khan Sheikhoun funeral, according to the Britain-based group.
Elsewhere yesterday, three civilians were killed as troops fired on a refugee camp in southern Daraa province, the Observatory said.
Regime forces also killed a young man in a raid on Mleiha Al-Aatsh village of Daraa province, the watchdog said. And in the province of Homs, a civilian was killed in Rastan under regime bombardment, according to the Observatory. The watchdog updated its toll of people killed in Syria on Tuesday to 64.
The bloodshed comes despite a truce brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan as part of a six-point plan aimed at ending violence that has swept Syria since March 2011, when the uprising against President Bashar erupted. Annan urged Syria to stop delaying an agreement on allowing UN access to more than one million Syrians in need of assistance, saying the process had been "very slow." Annan "remains extremely concerned about the plight of one million Syrians in need of humanitarian assistance," said Nesirky.
Palestinians and Syrians displaced from the Israeli-annexed Golan, the Observatory said.
The United Nations has accused both sides to the conflict of violating the ceasefire and warned that the country is edging closer to full-blown civil war. The Washington Post reported yesterday that Syria's rebels have seen an influx of arms including anti-tank weaponry, in an effort coordinated with the help of the US.
Officials in President Barack Obama's administration insist it is not directly supplying the weapons or providing funding, with Gulf states paying for the new arms, the newspaper said. But Washington has stepped up links with the rebels and regional militaries allying with them, playing a role in the rebel's foreign support network, the report said. "We are increasing our nonlethal assistance to the Syrian opposition, and we continue to coordinate our efforts with friends and allies in the region and beyond in order to have the biggest impact on what we are collectively doing," a senior State Department official told the Post.
At least four people were wounded yesterday in clashes between the army and residents of two areas of Lebanon's city of Tripoli supporting opposite sides in the crisis in neighboring Syria, a security official said.
The official said shooting broke out after soldiers tried to remove barricades in the northern port city's sensitive and mainly Sunni Muslim neighborhood of Bab Al-Tebbaneh.
Residents opened fire on the soldiers, one of whom was wounded, and the troops responded.
The clashes then escalated with residents of Jabal Mohsen, which sits opposite Bab Al-Tebbaneh, also opening fire.